Dr. Robert Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.B.M.R., is an NIH-funded medical researcher and author of Total Heart Health: How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease with the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health (Basic Health Publications, 2006). Here he answers questions on cardiovascular disease and its risk factors.

Q: What about high cholesterol? Can the Transcendental Meditation program help reduce high levels of cholesterol?

Dr. Schneider: High cholesterol is another major risk factor for heart disease and many forms of stroke. Cardiologists now prescribe lipid-lowering or cholesterol-lowering medication for people with high cholesterol or even normal cholesterol to reduce their possibility of getting a heart attack or stroke in the future.

However, drugs may not be necessary for reducing cholesterol. While diet and exercise have some effect. In general, those results are quite modest for most people. However, research on the Transcendental Meditation program has shown that people demonstrate reductions in cholesterol over on year’s time, without changing diet or exercise patterns and without changing drugs as shown in the research study, below.

Thus this simple mind-body intervention is also a technique for lowering cholesterol which is complimentary to any changes in diet and exercise that a person can make in his life.

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